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The Andis WDT-1 Beard and Hair Trimmer and Brio Beardscape we tested could not compete with our picks. Codos Hair Trimmer
Even though beards have been in vogue for at least a decade, their popularity seems to increase every year. And the rising reluctance of workers to spend 40 hours a week in an office will probably keep that trend going. Unless the beard wearer plans to make regular trips to the barber (or his name is Rick Rubin), all that bristly growth will need frequent trimming. We’ve found the cordless Philips Norelco MG7750 is the trimmer best suited to getting most beards looking great.
For facial-hair grooming, it’s convenient to be cord-free. And most trimmers’ rechargeable batteries last plenty long enough to power through several trims.
Trimming a heavy beard quickly is tough, so we preferred trimmers with the power to cut the heaviest beard in a few swipes.
We sought trimmers that had the power to cut quickly through thick beards but could also cut close enough to double as a shaver.
Our top picks come with guide combs in enough sizes to suit any beard style, plus other useful accessories, such as detail trimmers.
The cordless MG7750 has a friendly design, lots of useful accessories, and just the right amount of power needed for comfortable, precise grooming.
The Philips Norelco MG7750 has almost everything we could ask for in a beard trimmer. Its motor offers just the right amount of power—enough to make quick work of thick hair, but not so much that a slight slip will remove a large section of a beard or mustache. Its design feels great in the hand, and it saves space because it can stand upright on a countertop or in a medicine cabinet. The MG7750 is an all-purpose beard, hair, and body trimmer; it includes 14 guide combs, trimmer heads in three widths, a small foil shaver head, and a nose hair trimmer. In our tests, it ran for five hours on one charge. The steel blades are designed to be self-sharpening, no oiling needed. The sole downside is that its stainless steel body makes it relatively heavy and thus less portable than the Philips Norelco MG3750, our budget pick.
This sharp, powerful, and versatile cordless trimmer has all the power needed for heavy beards, with a comfortable grip that makes it easy to handle.
The Wahl Aqua Blade 9899 has the power and versatility of our previous runner-up pick, the Wahl Lithium Ion+ Stainless Steel Trimmer 9818, but with a larger, more secure grip that makes precise trimming easier and helps prevent slipups that can accidentally remove large chunks of a beard or mustache. That bigger grip also makes the Aqua Blade feel less buzzy in the hand. Like the Lithium Ion+, the Aqua Blade has a more powerful motor than most people need and also works as a hair and body trimmer. It comes with 12 guide combs, a detail trimmer head, a shaver head, and a nose hair trimmer. The fine-pitch steel blades with ground teeth require a couple of drops of oil every month. Unlike our top pick, the Aqua Blade can’t stand on its own, and the supplied stand is a little clumsy to use.
If you don’t mind a corded tool, the Wahl Peanut 8655 has cutting power that no cordless trimmer can match, with a durable, easy-to-maintain design.
If you want a reliable tool that can cut thick hair down to a stubble—and you don’t mind wrangling a power cord—we recommend the Wahl Peanut 8655. This less expensive yet powerful trimmer has been our corded pick for some time now, beating everything we’ve tested it against in terms of cutting power, durability, and closeness of trim. It’s stronger than any cordless trimmer we’ve tried, yet it’s lighter, smaller, more maneuverable, and easier to maintain than other pro trimmers and clippers, which tend toward tanklike construction.
Surprisingly powerful and versatile for the price, this lighter-weight cordless model includes a variety of accessories, but it needs frequent recharging.
If a low price is your highest priority, we like the power and versatility of the Philips Norelco MG3750, one of the most popular, well-reviewed trimmers on Amazon. It seems to trim about as well as our top pick, the same company’s MG7750, but its body is made mostly from plastic rather than stainless steel, so it’s lighter and therefore more practical for travel. It doesn’t feel as sturdy and stable as the MG7750, though, and it can’t stand on its own. Unlike other budget-priced trimmers we’ve used, the MG3750 can remove lots of hair quickly without pulling any in the process. And whereas most budget trimmers include only a single, adjustable guide comb, the MG3750 includes seven guide combs, a detail trimmer head, and a nose hair trimmer. Poor battery life is the biggest downside: You’ll probably have to charge it every week, particularly if you’re trimming a thick beard.
The cordless MG7750 has a friendly design, lots of useful accessories, and just the right amount of power needed for comfortable, precise grooming.
This sharp, powerful, and versatile cordless trimmer has all the power needed for heavy beards, with a comfortable grip that makes it easy to handle.
If you don’t mind a corded tool, the Wahl Peanut 8655 has cutting power that no cordless trimmer can match, with a durable, easy-to-maintain design.
Surprisingly powerful and versatile for the price, this lighter-weight cordless model includes a variety of accessories, but it needs frequent recharging.
Since this guide was first published in 2013, we’ve interviewed a number of experts—mostly professional barbers but also some product managers and everyday beard wearers. They include Jeff Bovee, director of product marketing at Wahl; Brett Rappaport, who was the consumer marketing manager of male grooming at Philips Norelco at the time of our interview; William Cabrera Jr., owner of Billy’s Barber Shop in Lowell, Massachusetts; Joe and Anthony Berriola of Razor’s Barbershop in Somerville, Massachusetts; and Jeremy Villao and Hung Nguyen, who at the time of our interview were with Fellow Barber in SoHo and the West Village (respectively) in New York City.
There are plenty of ways to shave, trim, or cut a beard. This guide focuses on corded and battery-powered beard trimmers designed to shape, angle, cut, or trim facial hair. These tools are suitable for practically any length of beard, from stubble to 6 inches or more. If you’re looking for an electric razor, we have a guide for that. If you’re shopping for hair clippers, we have a guide for those, too. And if you’re more old school and prefer a manual razor, we’ve got you covered.
Still, there’s a confusing array of devices designed specifically for cutting and trimming beards: those with all-in-one, adjustable guide combs, and those with clip-on guide combs; those with rechargeable batteries, and those with power cords; those with T-shaped blades for shaping and grooming, and those with precision-length combs meant for cutting hair at a uniform length. Each of these styles has its pros and cons. Our intent was to find the trimmers that could handle as many of these tasks as possible, as deftly as possible, and at a reasonable price.
In searching for the best beard trimmers, we looked for devices with the following attributes:
For our latest round of testing, we compared our established picks with all of the new models we could get our beards on. We eliminated any trimmer with an abnormal number of user complaints (especially those about build quality, battery reliability, or blades that pulled hair or jammed). We then consulted with manufacturers to find out which of their models would best suit this guide, making a particular effort to include trimmers with features that weren’t available for our most recent update.
The past few years have seen the introduction of innumerable new (and usually budget-priced) beard-trimmer brands. Most of these have generic designs and many have earned unenthusiastic reviews on Amazon, but we did find one (the Suprent BT315B) that got such good reviews, we figured we had to give it a spin.
We ended up choosing 13 additional models to test, which we then evaluated against our picks from the previous version of this guide. We also tested two additional models for our spring 2022 update.
For previous versions of this guide, we solicited the help of professional barbers to help test out the contenders. Since 2020, the coronavirus pandemic has made that impractical, so we limited our testing panel to Carlos and Brent—Wirecutter staffers with different textures and styles of facial hair, who minded the guidance we’ve received from the barbers cited above. We retested existing picks against 13 additional trimmers, seeking answers to these questions:
We compared notes on their experience using the trimmers, and Brent spent a few days testing the battery life and evaluating the design and attachments of each of the top contenders. We’ll continue to long-term test all of our picks.
The cordless MG7750 has a friendly design, lots of useful accessories, and just the right amount of power needed for comfortable, precise grooming.
If you’re looking for an all-around trimmer powerful enough to cut quickly through a thick beard, but not so powerful that it places unreasonable demands on your morning attention, we recommend the Philips Norelco MG7750. It’s a sturdy, well-made trimmer that we loved for many reasons, but mostly because its heft and trimming power make it such a pleasure to cut with. It comes with many useful accessories and also doubles as a hair and body trimmer, making it a solid, versatile choice.
Our testers found that the MG7750’s powerful motor makes it easy to get an overgrown beard looking sleek and stylish in just a couple of minutes. It’s powerful enough to remove lots of beard hair with a single stroke, and that extra power minimizes hairpulling, as well. But unlike the Wahl Aqua Blade 9899, the MG7750 isn’t so powerful or aggressive that you need to worry about a slight slip removing a large section of beard, so it’s just as good for those times when you need to make only a few little adjustments before a date or job interview. Pop the guides off and it can deliver a reasonably close shave around the bottom of a beard—it’s no match for a razor, but it’ll probably be fine unless you have a modeling gig coming up.
The heavy, 7.5-ounce stainless steel body feels sturdy and secure in the hand, and crosshatched grooves around the top should prevent the rather slick body from slipping. The body flares into a flat bottom that lets the MG7750 stand up on a countertop or in a medicine cabinet, saving space and keeping the trimmer head from getting tangled up in dental floss.
Because it’s intended for hair and body trimming, too, the MG7750 comes with numerous accessories. In addition to the 1 1/16-inch beard-trimmer head, it includes a 1⅜-inch hair trimmer—which also works well with very full beards—and a detail trimmer with a ¼-inch cutting area. Fourteen stiff plastic combs are provided, enough to suit any beard or hairstyle. There’s also a very effective nose hair trimmer and a foil shaver head (a smaller version of an electric razor) that is only marginally useful. Changing the heads is easy, and a fabric case is provided for carrying the accessories.
The cutter blades are made from stamped steel, but Philips Norelco says they’re self-sharpening and will stay sharp for years. We confirmed the rated battery life of five hours—long enough to go a few months without recharging—in our testing, although the motor’s speed started to fluctuate a little after the five-hour mark. Charge time is about five hours, and a five-minute charge will give you enough power for a couple of minutes of trimming. An LED light near the bottom illuminates when the charger is connected and goes out when charging is complete. The MG7750 requires no oiling.
Philips offers a five-year warranty on the body (although not on the trimmer heads and accessories) and a 45-day money-back guarantee.
The MG7750 is the heaviest cordless trimmer we tested, albeit by a margin of just 0.2 ounces. We liked the way it felt in our hands, but some might prefer a lighter, nimbler trimmer like the Philips Norelco MG3750, our budget pick. (At nearly half a pound, the MG7750 will add noticeable weight to an overnight bag, too, so frequent travelers may also favor the MG3750.) The MG7750 trimmer isn’t as powerful as the Wahl Aqua Blade 9899, and while the lower power makes mistakes less likely, those with thick or fast-growing beards may prefer the Wahl’s extra oomph.
This sharp, powerful, and versatile cordless trimmer has all the power needed for heavy beards, with a comfortable grip that makes it easy to handle.
The Wahl Aqua Blade 9899, which debuted in 2019, improves on our previous runner-up pick, the Wahl Lithium Ion+ Stainless Steel Trimmer 9818, thanks to a larger, more comfortable grip that makes the trimmer feel more secure in the hand (and thus less likely to accidentally take off too much of a beard or mustache). It’s an otherwise similar model, with comparable power and the same extensive selection of accessories for beard, hair, and body trimming. Both trimmers are the most powerful cordless models we’ve found and the best choices for heavy beards. The only downside to the Aqua Blade is that, unlike the Lithium Ion+, it can’t stand up by itself on a counter; Wahl provides a stand, but it’s made of lightweight plastic and requires you to use two hands to remove the trimmer.
All of our testers found that the Lithium Ion+’s powerful motor and fine-pitch, ground-steel blades easily removed hair on the first pass, with only infrequent hairpulling and little need for multiple passes. The Aqua Blade seems to have the same mechanism in a different case. Despite the head’s generous 1⅜-inch cutting area, it also does a precise job of shaving hairs near the bottom of the neck. It doesn’t match the closeness that a shaver can deliver, but it’s as good as we’ve ever gotten with a cordless beard trimmer.
Unlike the Lithium Ion+, which can be a bit slippery to hold, the Aqua Blade’s rubbery exterior offers a secure grip that doesn’t require a particularly steady hand. “The material makes it easier to grip, and the grip is thicker and fits more nicely in your palm,” said tester Carlos. With the Lithium Ion+, we found it too easy to swipe off almost half a mustache accidentally in a split second.
While the included stand that holds the Aqua Blade upright on a countertop can be a little unwieldy, it does charge the trimmer when it’s docked. With our other recommendations (as well as with the Lithium Ion+ the Aqua Blade replaced as a pick), you have to plug the charging cable into the bottom of the trimmer, which means it has to remain horizontal during charging.
Like our top pick, the Aqua Blade doubles as a hair and body trimmer. The package includes 11 guide combs, a detail trimmer head with a ¼-inch cutting area, a nose hair trimmer that works effectively, and a shaver head that gave us a closer and faster shave than the ones included with other trimmers we tested. The guide combs are a little flimsier compared with those of the Philips models we picked, but they get the job done. The trimmer-head blades require a couple of drops of oil every month (the Philips MG7750 and MG3750 do not), but it’s easy to do, and Wahl conveniently supplies a small bottle of oil.
At 5.4 ounces, the Aqua Blade is 28% lighter than the Philips Norelco MG7750.
The Aqua Blade’s run time is advertised at 40 minutes, but we got about 2½ hours out of it. Compare this with the MG7750, which runs for about five hours, or the Lithium Ion+, which was still going strong after its promised four-hour battery life. Still, the Aqua Blade should go at least a couple of weeks between charges, even when trimming a heavy beard daily. It also includes a charging LED to let you know when it needs a charge and when the charge is complete.
The Aqua Blade comes with a five-year full warranty. Wahl trimmers have a reputation for reliability through years of use, as Wirecutter staffers who’ve owned the Lithium Ion+ can attest.
If you don’t mind a corded tool, the Wahl Peanut 8655 has cutting power that no cordless trimmer can match, with a durable, easy-to-maintain design.
If you have a thick, coarse beard and find battery-powered trimmers to be too weak, you’ll want the Wahl Peanut 8655, which has been our favorite corded trimmer since we first published this guide back in 2013. It’s more powerful than any of the cordless trimmers we tested, on a par with professional corded tools. But unlike those typically tanklike trimmers, the Peanut 8655 has a slim design, making it more practical for home use and precision grooming. After years of testing and living with this trimmer, we can also say with confidence that it’s among the most durable we’ve ever found. The main reason it isn’t our pick is because most people prefer cordless beard trimmers. It also comes with fewer guide combs than our other picks.
Compared with cordless trimmers, the Peanut, which is available in black or white, does a better job of removing a large amount of beard hair in one pass; when used as a shaver, it also gets rid of more stubble than the cordless models we tested. Joe and Anthony Berriola of Razor’s Barbershop in Somerville, Massachusetts, gave it the nod as their overall favorite corded trimmer. “It’s got a small head that makes it easy to get into small areas,” Anthony said.
Weighing 4 ounces (not counting the cord) and measuring only 4 inches in length, the Peanut is easy to hold and maneuver around your face, even with a 7-foot-long cord attached. The four trimming guides simply pop on or off; some other corded tools require a screwdriver to make these adjustments. The guides aren’t the sturdiest we’ve tried, but they’re at least stiffer than the ones included with the Aqua Blade. The Peanut’s trimmer requires oiling once a month, but it takes only seconds, and Wahl provides a small bottle of oil.
Wahl covers the Peanut with a one-year warranty. Chances are, you won’t need it—several Wirecutter staffers and many online reviewers have used the Peanut for years with no problems. If you break any of the accessories or require a new blade, replacement parts are readily available. The only consistent complaint about the Peanut is that it’s corded.
The Peanut is also available in a AA battery-powered cordless version, which we haven’t tested. (Several customer reviewers who have reported more than a year of use cite eventual reductions in power not tied to replacement battery status.)
Surprisingly powerful and versatile for the price, this lighter-weight cordless model includes a variety of accessories, but it needs frequent recharging.
If you’re in the market for something inexpensive yet effective, we think the Philips Norelco MG3750 is the way to go. It clearly outperforms every other trimmer in its price range ($20 to $35), with a surprisingly powerful motor that has proven more than capable in all of our hair-trimming tests. This plastic-bodied trimmer has a slim, lightweight design that ensures plenty of dexterity for detailing and shaping, with a good grip that feels more secure than most trimmers its size. It also works as a hair and body trimmer, although the relatively narrow head may make cutting hair a little tedious. It’s especially useful as a pubic hair trimmer.
Both Carlos and Brent found the MG3750 quite similar to the larger, more expensive MG7750 in its ability to trim with just a single stroke and without grabbing beard hairs. Even the barbers who tested it gave it a slightly above-average score for how much hair it could remove in a single pass, how close each trim could get to the skin, and how it pulled fewer hairs than other budget trimmers. It also delivers a reasonably close shave around the bottom of the beard. Still, those with thick beards would probably have a better experience with our costlier picks.
Although Philips bills the MG3750 as a multipurpose beard, hair, and body trimmer, the 1 1/16-inch-wide cutting surface of its main trimming head may make cutting hair more difficult compared with the 1⅜-inch heads on the MG7750 and the Wahl Aqua Blade. It includes seven nicely sturdy trimmer combs, an effective nose hair trimmer, and a detail trimmer with a ¼-inch cutting surface.
Judged by handfeel, trimming with the MG3750 is a very different experience than what you’d have with our other trimmers. At 3.7 ounces, it’s about half the weight of our other cordless picks, so it doesn’t feel as stable in the hand—but it’s more nimble and thus a little easier to use for detail work. That light weight also makes the MG3750 the best travel companion of all our picks; you can toss it into an overnight bag and you’ll never notice the extra weight.
A clear downside of the MG3750 is its short, one-hour battery life. While ours ran for about 20 minutes longer, the MG3750’s stated eight-hour charge time gives you no leeway if you forget to plug it in every week or two. And as the MG3750 ages, the run time will decrease. You can get about five minutes of use with a 15-minute charge, though.
Philips offers a two-year warranty with the MG3750’s body (not on its trimmer heads and accessories), as well as a 45-day money-back guarantee. The shorter warranty suggests the MG3750 may not be as reliable as the MG7750, which has a five-year warranty. Given our long-term experience with less-expensive trimmers, we would expect to see signs of power fade, slower motor speeds, or shorter battery life after a while.
If you want a trimmer specifically for fine detail work: We had initially dismissed the Philips Norelco OneBlade Face + Body QP2630, a lightweight shaver-trimmer combo, because it didn’t have the power to cut easily through thick beards, and its cutting head was supposed to be replaced every three months. But since then, we’ve found it to be a fantastic choice for goatees. It shaves almost as close around a goatee as a good electric razor can, and it works as comfortably and precisely as a mustache trimmer. Although it’s no powerhouse, those with goatees or light beards should find that it does the job as a beard trimmer well enough. Brent has been using it for about a year without changing the blade and reports that it’s still cutting well—and he’s had to recharge it only once.
The stainless steel Andis 32400 Slimline is similar in ways to the Philips Norelco MG7750 and Wahl Aqua Blade 9899 but it’s lighter and has a narrower trimmer head. It cuts well, but the longest guide comb is only ⅜ of an inch, which isn’t enough for fuller and/or longer beards.
The Andis T-Outliner is a professional-grade corded trimmer that’s built like a tank, but unlike our picks, it does not come with any guide combs (though you can buy a set of four separately). It is preferred by barbers for close-cutting and fine detail work. It’s also heavier than our corded pick, the Wahl Peanut. Both are covered by one-year warranties.
The Andis WDT-1 Beard and Hair Trimmer has a handy integral comb and trimmer adjustment, but removing the comb for close trims is a pain, and even with the comb removed, it can’t make close trims.
Even at its lowest blade-height setting, the Beard Club PT45 can’t trim close enough to double as a razor.
The Braun BT5070 Beard Trimmer for Men, Cordless & Rechargeable (currently unavailable) has so-so customer reviews and an odd design. It’s a decent trimmer for certain beard lengths, but it’s not very versatile.
If you want a trimmer with an adjustable guide comb, the Braun BT5265 is a solid choice. It actually has two combs, each of which can be set for 20 different lengths using a top-mounted knob that’s easily flicked with the thumb. Carlos and Brent both found it powerful, but Carlos noticed that the combs didn’t glide well through his thicker beard.
The Brio Beardscape is a fairly powerful trimmer with five speeds and a nice, solid feel in the hand, but it can’t trim close enough to double as a razor, and it’s about double the price of our top pick.
Brookstone’s now-discontinued Beard and Mustache Trimmer is somewhat similar to the Aqua Blade, but bulkier and a little heavier. The Brookstone cuts fine, but its guide design is fussy—five different guides, each of which has five different settings, and they’re rather flimsy.
The unusual design of the ConairMan i-Stubble features a floating trimmer head that moves as you run it over the contours of your face. An interesting idea, but we prefer our picks.
We found too many reliability-related complaints about the ConairMan Cordless Beard and Mustache Trimmer to consider it a contender.
The Hatteker Men’s Beard Trimmer is a chunky trimmer that feels stable in the hand and works well for full beards, but it can’t trim closely enough to shave the area around the beard adequately.
The King C. Gillette Style Master is a hybrid shaver/trimmer, but it can’t shave as closely or quickly as the Philips Norelco OneBlade Face + Body QP2630, and it lacks sufficient cutting power to trim a beard quickly.
The Mowbie Beard Trimmer is more costly than our budget pick, the Philips Norelco MG3750, but doesn’t shave as close and doesn’t include the MG3750’s generous selection of accessories. It does incorporate a silicone scrub brush and a vibrating mode intended to act as a face scrubber, but the scrubbing power added by the vibration is negligible.
The beloved Oster Classic 76 Universal Motor Clipper is a corded “workhorse” available in 12 colors. However, it regularly costs more than double what our corded pick, the Wahl Peanut, costs; is significantly heavier; and doesn’t come with any guide combs (though you can buy a set of 10 separately). The Classic 76’s cord (9 feet) is longer than the Peanut’s (7 feet). Both models are covered by one-year warranties.
We decided to try the Panasonic ER-2403K because it’s one of the few AAA-powered models available, but it’s among the weakest trimmers we tested and requires several passes. In the end, it gets the trimming done, so it’s a reasonable choice for those who frequent remote locales, but sadly that’s not us.
A former runner-up pick, the Panasonic ER-GB60-K is a powerful, versatile beard trimmer with a whopping 39 length settings. But in our tests it seemed to pull too many hairs for comfort, and the list price is rather high given the performance flaws.
The Panasonic ER-SB40, an adjustable guide trimmer, cuts well, but it’s bulky in the hand. And its guide-adjustment knob has to be spun with your thumb and forefinger, rather than just flicked with the thumb, which is uncomfortable and inconvenient.
The Philips Norelco QG3330/60 Multigroom 3100 and Philips Norelco QG3364/42 Multigroom 5100 didn’t impress us as much as other Philips models, and each has a battery life of just one hour.
The vacuum-equipped Philips Norelco QT4070/41 BeardTrimmer 7300 is extremely expensive compared with our picks, and its rather flimsy cutting guide and stiff adjustment wheel didn’t impress our testers.
The Remington PG6025 All-in-1 Lithium Powered Grooming Kit costs as much as our budget pick but doesn’t perform quite as well. The motor is slightly weaker and the attachments are flimsier.
We considered the simple, affordable Remington MB200 (currently unavailable) with an adjustable guide comb as a possible budget pick because it cuts well, but we found too many complaints about battery life in online reviews.
The now-discontinued Remington MB4040 cuts well, but its adjustable guide is rather flimsy and uncomfortable to use.
Our consulting barbers docked the Remington MB4045B The Beardsman Beard Boss Full Beard Kit (currently unavailable) for requiring several passes to remove all the hair in a given path. They didn’t like its bulky shape, either.
The Remington MB4700 Smart Beard Trimmer is a high-tech trimmer with a motorized, adjustable guide comb and an “auto turbo” function that Remington says will automatically adjust the motor speed for the thickness of the beard. It cuts well but is bulky in the hand, and you have to remember to turn the touchscreen off before you start shaving, otherwise you might accidentally change a setting.
Remington’s MB6850 Vacuum Stubble and Beard Trimmer has a built-in vacuum to catch cut hairs, but for us it seemed to miss a lot of them, and it’s also very bulky in the hand.
We chose to test the inexpensive Suprent BT315B (now discontinued) because we saw its great reviews on Amazon. It gets the job done, but compared with our budget pick, it seemed to take a lot more strokes to remove the same amount of hair.
The Wahl Chrome Pro 79524-2501, a pro-style corded trimmer, has wide, sharp blades that are too large to trim facial hair effectively.
Wahl’s Lithium Ion All-in-One Rechargeable Trimmer 9854 is a decent trimmer, but we’ve found that as time passes the battery gets flaky, its performance diminishes, and it begins to pull hair.
The Wahl Lithium Ion+ Stainless Steel Trimmer 9818 was once our runner-up pick, but the Aqua Blade 9899 is basically the same trimmer with a much more comfortable and secure grip. The Lithium Ion+ is a good choice if you like the look of the stainless steel body, or if you really want a trimmer that can stand upright on a countertop without needing a separate stand.
The relatively inexpensive Wahl Lithium Ion Beard & Stubble Trimmer 9867 (currently unavailable) has a built-in adjustable guide comb that’s not particularly versatile or sturdy.
Wahl once recalled its Lithium Ion Total Beard Trimmer 9888 for battery problems, and this model isn't as popular or easy to find as the Aqua Blade or the Lithium Ion+.
If you’re looking for a corded trimmer that’s typically a bit less expensive than the Wahl Peanut, the Wahl Power Pro 9686 is an excellent choice, though we prefer the former’s slim, peanut-shaped over the Power Pro’s candy-bar shape.
Wahl’s corded T-Styler Pro 9686-300 is virtually identical to the Power Pro but comes with a wider, T-shaped blade. It has all of the same pros and cons.
At around $220, the Walker & Company Bevel Trimmer is one of the most powerful cordless trimmers we’ve tested, with exceptionally sharp blades. But the design feels odd, and it doesn’t come with an option to attach a guide comb, which is essential for many people.
Séamus Bellamy and Tyler Wells Lynch contributed reporting.
This article was edited by Tracy Vence and Kalee Thompson.
Brent Butterworth is a senior staff writer covering audio and musical instruments at Wirecutter. Since 1989, he has served as an editor or writer on audio-focused websites and magazines such as Home Theater, Sound & Vision, and SoundStage. He regularly gigs on double bass with various jazz groups, and his self-produced album Take2 rose as high as number three on the Roots Music Report jazz album chart.
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Wahl Hair Clippers Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions. Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time).